


Nocturne - Pianissimo

by FlyingPendragon



Series: Nocturne [5]
Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: F/M, Macro/Micro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27731371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingPendragon/pseuds/FlyingPendragon
Summary: In anger over Cid's repeated infidelities, Hilda flees to the lone threat the Regent would hate more than life itself.
Relationships: Hildagarde Fabool/Kuja
Series: Nocturne [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900582





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm drunk right now and could not resist. More Hilda/Kuja, and I hope sable_fahndu, PookyOfBears, and Katzenkinder like this 💗
> 
> FFIX is not mine. If it was, Kuja would be pleasuring me nightly. Lol!
> 
> \- FlyingPendragon -

_"Forget it. There’s simply no reasoning with you! What am I to tell Eiko when she asks?” Small hands thrust clothing into the chest of drawers, white-knuckled with every move. "I asked you not to do so again. I told you it would be far worse if you ever attempted to. And now I find you in bed with that——Th-that——” She couldn’t even breathe for how red everything looked around her._

"Hilda, please. You cannot simply insist on me forgoing all of my lovers…. You knew the possibility remained of me returning to them. I’m a man with needs." Needs? He’d been thrusting mindlessly into whatever woman still lay in his bed…. _She_ needed a husband who would respect her, and apparently hadn’t married one.

"Cid, you are swine in a royal cloak. If you were so dissatisfied, I’d've thought you’d divorce me by now. Even _that_ shows more respect than for you to do this." Hildagarde slammed the chest closed and spun on a heel to face her husband. "I married you at a girl’s age, we have a daughter, and you think this is an acceptable way for you to conduct yourself. It’s only a mercy I found out you were philandering again, from another would-be conquest."

"Not her…." The regent shook his head. "I told her to treat the matter with complete discretion! Whom did she tell?"

"You do not attempt upon Zidane’s child sister." One slender finger shook in his face. "She was utterly terrified of you…. She cannot process complex human emotions. How _dare_ you try to impress further complications on her. Imagine if you had taken and impregnated her!"

"Hilda, I require an heir. We have discussed this many times; only blood relations can inherit the regency. If I were to have been assassinated, or died of sickness…. It would've been left to _you_ to rule! You are too furious a woman to be given the responsibility."

"Do not blame the child you married for the _adult_ you still refuse to become,” she snarled, and pulled the chest out the door. "I will return for the rest of my belongings. Do not mar even a one, Cidolfas, or I will return your malice a hundredfold."

The door slammed behind her—— Alone again, it seemed, and this time there was no handsome young wizard to spirit her away.

A pity, she reflected; that’d have been the worst she could think of.

Nocturne - Pianissimo

As it turned, Eiko was as glad to be rid of the regent as Hilda was. The two stood there at Alexandria Castle’s gates, looking over the phalanx of guards who’d come to meet them. And behind them, the General——lone eye showing confusion as to the nature of their visit. Though Steiner had accompanied them, and his silently cringing expression told her he knew.

"Good afternoon, Beatrix. I’m sorry to have to come here in such form."

She turned to look at her husband—— A pity and a grace he was so loyal. He nodded and approached the portcullis.

"He did it again."

"Indeed." Beside Hilda, Eiko huffed quietly on her feet, clinging to the older woman. "And I would speak with Garnet…to see if anything may be done, or she knows a place I can retreat to. I did nothing to Cid this time, and I sorely wish I had."

"Perhaps I should've punched his oglop form harder,” Steiner murmured. "Beatrix is opening the door…. Best we get you here under more discretion than a raising of heavy gates." Away from them, the door—— And Beatrix approached with an armful of linen. Cloaks, to hide them from all the citizens who might end up staring…. She knelt and slung one around Eiko, over her head and shoulders; Hilda slipped into the other and bound it close.

"Come then, child. We'll see you and your mother are taken immediately to Her Majesty." Behind Beatrix, her guards retreated; Steiner alone remained, his arms a goodly fortress for the little summoner to hide in. He carried her solemnly along the path, matching Hilda and Beatrix’s pace enough for their company.

"I simply cannot believe it. I’m so devastated." She shook her head. She’d have to leave Eiko with Garnet and Zidane if she could, while she figured out a place for both of them to hide away from Cid's possible intervention. "How has the kingdom been since we last visited?"

"Master Vivi’s children are a constant delight. They have not returned to their village…. It seems they’re in need of a fatherly hand since his passing." Steiner sighed behind her. "Eiko won’t have a shortage of company."

"I went from being Eiko Carol, to Eiko Carol Fabool. And now it’s gonna go right back to where it was,” the smallest of Cid’s victims mourned. "I finally had a father and now he’s gone and screwed it up. I heard what he said to Mother, how she was too angry to be the regent even if he got sick and died…. He wants a _real_ kid, Steiner. And I guess I’m not real enough for him."

"You are more than enough for anyone else. He is only a fool."

"What must I do to be _loved,_ Beatrix?" Ahead of them, Hilda despaired. "When will I be enough for anyone on Gaia? For the only man I ever believed to guard me with the fire of a thousand suns, and the jealous eyes of a dragon, has gone and been destroyed in the bottom of the Iifa Tree. I never thought I would see the day when _Kuja_ would be the desire of my heart."

The General looked slowly away as they approached the castle steps.

"…Hildagarde, we do not believe him to be dead.” 

Those words sent tremors through her. She closed her fingers together over her breasts——were it only so. If she could parlay with that deadliest of archmages and win his protection over the two of them…. "Do you know where he’s gone?"

"Only Zidane Tribal knows…and so far, he has refused to give away his secrets."

Perhaps she could wheedle it out of the lad. After all, Cidolfas had nearly taken Mikoto into his bedchamber…purely from revenge itself, her brother might be willing to help.

-

They set her to the chamber beside Garnet’s; the Queen sadly watched Hilda put Eiko to bed, reach for the bottle beside her pallet. Laudanum…and the last soul who’d needed it had been Kuja himself, in the cunning disguise he’d seduced Alexandria with.

"I have to tell her, Dagger, don’t I?"

She sighed. "He’s as solitary as she tends to be. If Aunt Hilda wants to go chasing Kuja down, look to him for some form of hope, perhaps she should; I haven’t heard much from him by moogle."

"Artemicion’s the only moogle out there…. He belongs to Kuja and was less than useless to Mognet in his time. I doubt he’d bring us anything unless it was important."

Slowly Garnet turned on her feet, to slip into Zidane’s waiting embrace. "He may be lonely out there, think of it…. Perhaps something happened to Artemicion. Maybe Kuja’s been without the ability to contact us…and failing his own desire to upset anyone has decided it’s for the best. He could be languishing away out there. Please. I do not know where he is and neither do I need to. But please…. For Hilda _and_ Kuja’s sakes, tell her where he is. It may be a distant and desperate chance, but you wished him to be safe and happy, didn’t you?"

"He won’t be safe if Hilda goes after him. Cid'll follow."

"But he might be happier with company, the kind that requires no return to its own lands. Eiko and Hilda have nowhere now but Madain Sari, and there’s nothing of arable substance for them out there. Garland’s malice salted the earth with blood."

He frowned, brushing her hair away from her eyes. "If I tell her, I can’t let Cid find her. He won’t have the chance to father an heir before he’s blown to bits; Kuja is in no mood to see anyone, and I fear this may include Hilda. He laid several traps in the entryway to his hiding place…not enough the whole damn castle’s full of them."

"Oh, Zidane…. Ipsen?"

"Best place possible for a man who had everything. The land is more than fertile now, and whatever he can’t grow he'll magic up himself. He probably has enough safety and security for _barely_ his own mind if that…. But I guess you’re right. I mean, he’s the only one who gave a damn enough about Hilda to tell her Cid’s behavior was awful. He told her she could do better and should."

"Now she is seeking it, Zidane. Please. For how dreadful a thing she’s been through, and how lonely he had to be to want the entire world to die."

-

How lovely the night breezes were, flowing through his window. The sweetness of the flowers, the soft, sleepy purr of silver dragons…. Enough of them out here, with Terra shattered on its axes. A fate overdue.

So too was his misery, perhaps. He’d been the victor over the pains he was bred in...but now, nothing remained to give him any excitement. No one on the planet was strong enough to end him in single combat. The renewed power through his veins gave him no comfort; though he were mighty, it had come at a price.

His very _existence_ was pyrrhic now.

"No one but my lovely friends to see me…. They are beautiful, but I cannot only exist with company." _Not the sort that isn’t touched, held…._ A deep ache wound through his soul there, where he languished out the window. "If only some gentle soul would free me from this pain."

A long silvery snout prodded his hair. "I know. But you all have your mates, your young. I have no one now who can be so closely wedded to me. Lord Avon wrote of this, of the cold that reaches even to a man’s cockles…." How pathetic. He’d nearly ended the world and couldn’t find himself a lover now to save his life.

Low purring told him he was thought of fondly enough, even without a mate. Perhaps he was one of their whelps, then, or a fledgling who’d broken his wings and retreated back to his mother’s nest.

In some ways, he envied the people of this world; all of them had had a mother. But for the Genomes and those Black Mage dolls, everyone who breathed Gaian air had been blessed with both a mother and a father…. And the lone opportunity he’d had to be one, he’d cast away cruelly enough that the one who might be his son was dead of his evils. Grandchildren, then, and he would never show his face to them lest he give them the same curse.

But it ached to be so lonesome here. Another form beside his, at night…someone to close his arms around and hold. Where once he could've had it, he’d let it slip through his fingers for the foolishness alone. Tired her with speeches, terrified her with plots, abducted her and ruined her plan to escape the libertine she’d wed…. She could've escaped if Kuja hadn’t been so stupid.

"If only I could see her again." He knew he never would.


	2. II

In dreams, she forgot Cid——the palace, her responsibilities, the things he had promised would be hers…. 

Love, fidelity, kindness. He had vowed all and kept none…but here she stood, at the helm of her ship once more; had she come to Alexandria at all? For it seemed she could not hear Eiko’s scampering play, but the heavy rush of footsteps——

Huge white hands closed over her arms, pulling her away…another clay hulk took her place at the wheel, mindless golden stare following her forced retreat. She knew this moment, she had battled with herself to find a way out….

Steel-trimmed boots sang against the floor. Eldritch floral musk crept through her sinuses…the man behind it as fearsome as any could believe. She turned slowly to the sound of his advance——heart thundering, headdress slipping from her hair.

His eyes, so blue in this light. Less a pale sky, more gentian somehow…. Piercing, sending deep heat through her frame and soft slick webs between her thighs. She stiffened where she stood; was this the same man she’d met before? For to her eyes now, Brahne’s conqueror looked less the effeminate kind and more a deeply-cut, leanly muscled man. His right thigh had nearly been cleaved in two and healed roughly, a scar showed where Bahamut had grazed him….

"What brings you to me now?" She couldn’t manage anything else. Behind her, the Black Mage golem——Type-A?——firmly held her, awaiting the order from his lovely master.

"I could ask the same,” Kuja husked. "It is a dangerous road you travel, Hildagarde Fabool. Take care you don’t lose your steps…." He drew close to her, so close his breath dusted her cheeks and décolleté——floral madness clinging to his skin. That scent…. She swore she'd smelled it in her dreams, every night since he’d abducted her.

Or perhaps he’d seen the magma vein because he’d watched her chamber nightly. Pinned and helpless, she considered where she was—— Dreams, or reality? For his difference in form, she could think either…. "I will not hear that name." She stared into those powerful eyes. "I don’t belong to the regency and neither to Cid."

"Oh! So you came to your senses…." He turned away, looking past them to the palace. "You've cursed him forever, you know. The moment he learns where you are, where you've gone…. Abandoning his cruelty for a man younger than  _ you.  _ I’m barely old enough to be the father of your precious Eiko. How long have you spent unfulfilled, Hildagarde? Was it from the first night, when your fourteen-year-old self was taken and ravaged in the bonds of matrimony? I do wonder why humans marry so young…."

"Mikoto was nearly harmed by that bastard. You must save me!"

"Save you?” He whirled on his booted feet. Something had changed…His ensemble, perhaps, a strange iridescent finish winding through it. And how did it come that his hair darkened with sun now? “You've mistaken my intent,” he murmured, even his skin threading through with bronze. "I have left all of them behind and do not wish the trouble. Cidolfas will follow you, he will intrude upon my sanctity and attempt to destroy it."

"But  _ where  _ are you, Kuja? I need such safety…Not only for me." She struggled against those thick cloth-covered hands. "He’d harm anyone he could, you know that. The man is addicted to the act of conquest. Would you have Eiko’s innocence destroyed as well?"

He frowned there——nearly a theatrical mask for how much his eyes showed the expression.

"Anyone who finds me risks their life…. Including you.” Barely a flicker in those eyes——she tore away from her bonds, advanced on him even as his steps took him back. "You persist so strongly I wonder if you've gone mad."

"I have not been sane since meeting you, Kuja. I returned to a home that barely knew me, after I bound him to that fragile form—— They whispered about me in the castle. How evil I had to be to leave the regency, they were sure I’d taken you as a lover. Even Cid wondered if you’d touched me. I could scream with how awfully that man behaves now."

"How much the cuckolder protests. You don’t think the woman he has now is unattached, do you? He frolics unbidden with other men’s wives and has the nerve to accuse me of impropriety. Me, the most noble man in Treno. I was appointed their archmage and conservator for a reason…."

"Then you’re in Treno."

"No, I've chosen the task of supporting them from afar. You’d barely recognize it now. How often did he permit you to leave the palace, Hilda? Were you ever away from his eyes?"

"Not until now, Kuja. Please. Have mercy on me." She backed him to the banister, hands folding together at her breasts. "I need sanctuary. Any white mage would do the same. You know they would."

"If they had sanctuary to give,” he agreed softly there. "I would not have my lovelies killed, Hilda. Cid would hunt them and taunt me as he did. The paradise I inhabit now is not for rude mortals…. Only the angels themselves may come."

Her fingers slowly walked up his pauldrons, to thread into that eerie blonde hair. Beneath them hard leather gave way to softened silk and velvet——a grandly woven coat, ruffled blouse. A different man seemed to watch her now. “Perhaps I may convince you,” she whispered, "to open your gates to this humble supplicant…."

"You look at me so strangely, Hilda. As though the hounds of Hell are at your heels." Curls spun around her hands, framing his delicate features. "Why? What makes you seek me, when I entrusted my secret only to Zidane? You weren’t meant to learn of my whereabouts…. I want to be alone."

How his heart throbbed under her touch. She felt it along the side of his neck. "Your words are all that say such…your body has another mind altogether. But if you would have me leave, then depart from this vision…. I am certain I see it only for your wills. Only you treated me with equanimity, Kuja, you did not believe me any higher than yourself. All else fear my wrath or say not a word to me."

"You are nothing I fear." Slowly he lifted a gloved hand to her cheek. The Black Mages on the ship stilled——looking around, perhaps unsure of what to do. For this had begun with the invasion of her airship, and now she caught sight of the sky behind him. A faraway spike, hidden from sight by the land around it…. An unusually arable sort, rains and dragon fire lending forest and flowers to what might've once been dead….

She knew where he was…and why he’d denied her. The creature he’d ridden across Gaia had not been alone; an entire realm of them sunned themselves, tended their young. The topmost tower of the castle flew shining white banners, and in the midst of them a dragon nuzzled whatever soul lay inside.

"I swear,” she whispered, “I shall not let your solace be disturbed. I only wish to look upon you again…to feel your form beneath my hands. To know what I had not given myself to before."

"When last you left this place, you were a girl, having visited with your new husband." His arms closed over her back, holding her to him. "It has  _ changed, _ Hilda. It will not obey your wills…you were but an explorer then and now would be its queen. Come for me if you can…. But take care you aren’t caught in the snares I've laid."

"I fear none of them."

"You would be wiser to."

"You taunt me, Kuja…. Gird yourself. I will not be denied your company…. Not after you sought me so powerfully before." Those gentian eyes widened at her words, seeming to simmer with unspoken lust.

"Then I will be waiting,” he breathed, before both his form and the sky melted away.

-

She was better off away from him, he reflected for likely the tenth time that evening. No good could come of her making it here, being caught by a trap…. The most perilous of them looked too innocuous to be one. But the fire in his blood…. He craved and feared what it meant. No more Mist in his veins, but how could he know by his fevers? His pounding heart?

"You fool," he chided softly, watching his image in the last of the pillars…the one Amarant Coral had failed to find. "Losing your head over a woman…. And I'd thought Garnet or Beatrix would've ensorceled you. No, another man's  _ wife. _ Cidolfas thought you'd cuckolded him, and by Chaos, you'd be lying if you said you didn't wish to.  _ Arghh, but if I could only steal her away again…." _

_ No. You mustn't lose your senses. If you do, he'll find and challenge you…. Either he'll kill you, or you'll kill him…She won't want the victor. Your work would be for naught. Stay here where you're safe. Zidane didn't help you to see you commit regicide again. If she comes, she'll come. _

He sank back-first into the stone wall. If she came to him, he'd give her all the pleasures this world could devise, if only to keep her. He'd even tear out his heart, the traitorous thing it was, and lay it at her feet…. 

Rime crackled along the wall, a pitiable thing to cool his lusts.  _ Don't look for her. Don't go to her. She'll come if she wants to…. And after your dreams as of late…. _

"Why, Kuja…why must you be so fragile? To yearn for someone who kept her place…. While you abandoned yours and destroyed it. Lord, what fools these mortals be, and you with them."

His reflection offered nothing in return. Not that he’d expected it to, but if he could only know whether his feelings were real. Maybe he’d never felt anything for anyone and only wanted what he couldn’t obtain by free will.

It was as likely as anything else…he was all of the fool Garland had thought, and twice the mistake if he couldn’t learn to live with his loneliness.

"At least I'll never see that bastard again." He trudged to his pallet, the soft-stuffed thing it was, and sank into it face-first——thinking of how even a paradise was hell when you were alone in it. How miserable the knowledge.

If he could somehow find her without leaving this place…. He shook his head and closed his eyes, reaching for a pillow to hug tightly to the tasseled fabric.

_ You have my soul, _ he realized there in the dark,  _ and I don’t believe I want it back. _

-

She rose early that day——too early to be confronted, as she didn’t need a word of what Zidane was about to tell her. Eiko understood; the look in those bright eyes of hers was one of both sympathy and jealousy, though why her prepubescent daughter felt such things for grown men was an unreal concept. She’d have to grow out of that behavior lest someone evil pervert it to his wills.

_ Not after I married Cidolfas so young. She might end up taken in such ways if I did not watch her closely. _ Shaking her head, Hilda crept down the hall in little but flying clothes; she didn’t need such finery if she was rushing into the traps Ipsen’s Castle doubtlessly held. Not possessing proper riding breeches was a waste and more…just another way she’d been controlled from even her youth.

_ "Ladies do not wear trousers, trews, breeches, or anything of the sort,” _ she mocked under her breath, loathing the moustached monster she’d married. But she had to stop in the hall; someone approached, a heavy-footed man she doubted was anyone but Steiner.

Good man. Kindly one…finally given the sort of love he had always needed. Stilling there, she watched him reach the corner—— Turn his head, see her…and stop, brows rising.

"Why, Hildagarde. I had not expected you to rise so early."

"I know where Kuja is, Adelbert. I’m going to find him…Eiko’s here. I don’t want her being carted off by whomever comes to collect her for Cid. He wanted a 'real' daughter? Then he will not have mine. Lords only know what he’d do to her when she grew her bosoms."

He frowned; clearly he knew the suspicion all too well. "I'll see she’s not disturbed. But if you happen to make it without incident, please…let him know we are thinking of him and wish him well. It’s rather funny, when he was visiting Alexandria as Lord Anchorite, he said Beatrix and I looked like we’d be wed someday. I only wish I’d seen what he had." A wistful smile spread over his thin lips there…a romantic in every inch of him. "I’d not see the child accosted by anyone he thought would make a governor or guardian for her…. Our generation seems to have lost its way where children are concerned."

"I’m alarmed at the number of  _ pederasts _ in Treno,” she murmured. "Especially how many are older than Artania…. Poor Vivi lived outside of the city for months. It’s a miracle he wasn’t harmed."

"I’m not sure…." He sighed. "Master Vivi was a world unto himself. Even if he had been, he’d never have told anyone for the incongruity he already felt."

"Imagine…. If Kuja could bring him back to life, if the man would take me as a lover…we could raise the children together. Eiko and Vivi would be siblings, they’d both have a complete and loving family." The idea gave both of them to content there, the way Steiner’s eyes shone.

"I would not ask anything personally of him…, but it is my fondest wish to see the lad again. I miss him dearly." Straightening up, though, he looked down the hall——more sound, the castle's inhabitants were waking for the day. “If you want to leave unseen, it may be best to do so now. I'll hope for the best occurrence for both of you…he must be terribly lonely out there. Be swift…. And let us know what happens, if you’re able."

"I will." She embraced him, suddenly unsure if she’d ever see him again.

Guards, from both armies. Quina Quen’s thundering footsteps, the Meisters running behind…. "Hurry, Hilda. To Kuja’s side, and whatever solace you can offer the man now. I wish you luck."

"Thank you, Adelbert,” she whispered, and slipped away down the hall.

  
  


-

  
  


He opened his eyes; dark shrouded the halls where he’d roamed. Sleepwalking? Kuja hadn’t recalled being given to it, but in his state of mind these days, anything was possible. Around him, below him, monsters growled in slumber——Mimics, clustered in the corners or under tables. Malirides had simply fallen where they were, multiple arms folded beneath their heads or half-clutching a blade. The few Tonberries lay huddled in their robes.

"This is so strange——” He’d been planning things for Hilda’s arrival if she’d come to him, but falling to sleep in his chambers and waking up out here…. Possible if he’d managed to open the doors from outside. He had a habit of surprising even himself now and then.

He declined the quick trip, instead roaming the castle, collecting his thoughts. Here and there a rimey wall told where he’d touched stone in his sleep; he’d left the longer way, somehow. But other things attracted him…. A springy set of petticoats, a familiar-looking headdress…had she made it here without his intervention? Might she have seen his sleeping self and simply passed him by? Delicate handprints in the rime told him which way she’d headed.

"No…no, this isn’t right…How did she get here without me noticing her?" The trail led him through every floor, all the stairways…. Amarant Coral hadn’t gotten to the tower, and she wasn’t on the level below it. Had she made it through?

From his periphery, the last column shone like a mirage, a single print in its surface. She’d somehow gotten into his chamber...passed the final test. And he’d been sleeping while she did, or she’d edged past his graceless form and in. His heart began to race; slowly he looked away, covered the print with his own.

His chambers opened up around him…the black candles lit, those lengthy pillars as thin as his fingers, some taller than he stood. Inky wax had dripped and pooled at their ends. And in his bed….

"Hello, Kuja."

She  _ had. _ The former Queen of Lindblum lay swathed in petal-pink silk, cushioned in pillows, nearly sinking whole into his pallet. Crushed purple velvet spilled with candles' fiery gold around her, the woman herself as flawless as a graven idol. Her hair lifted like a flaxen corona.

"I've been waiting here all this time and you didn’t come." Those lovely, arched brows lowered.

He dropped to one knee.  _ "Hildagarde——” _

Her lips. They curved in the smallest of smiles there…her hands smoothed over his bedcovers, invitations in themselves. "You kept me waiting,” she chided softly. "This isn’t how you treat a queen…especially one you lust for. Come here." Stunning woman, bewildering presence. How she’d managed to get into his room unseen….

Nevertheless he complied, knelt before her, to accept and kiss the knuckles of her proffered left hand. His nose touched her skin; her dusting powder smelled of desert blossoms. Again, and again, his lips sank to her fingers, he followed her hand to its drape between her thighs. 

"You invited me." Her voice was barely a whisper. "And here I am."

"So you are." He could barely breathe for ardor’s weight on his back. "Oh my sweet. I shall do anything you wish of me; I am your slave."

Those eyes seemed to cool there, to rime themselves. "You are no one’s slave. Come here…I wish to see you in the form I nearly did in Gulug. You remember…. When the magma came rushing down the hall, you wore but your skirt and codpiece, dripping with sweat—— Your hands cast the fires away, the mountain itself to slumber…."

"Milady." His fingers trembled on the belt across his pauldrons. His heart pounded, the buckles at his codpiece would tear away with but another word from those lips…. A man bespelled, he stripped hard leather, gossamer silk, bracers, cuirass, boots, stockings. And in the air, the inescapable aroma of desire itself, where it streamed from between her thighs.

Those beautiful eyes. That boundless, lovely body. She rose to watch him, shapely legs parting with her motion…. Oh, how his breaths faltered, as he realized with but a pull of her hands he might end up inside of her. Slender fingers reached for one buckle, then another.

"Hilda——," He groaned, “please…do not tease me so…."

"I want to see you bare as the day he created you, Kuja." The lusty seize of leather, tinkling of electrum scales, and his heavy skirt fled his hips for the stone floor. All of him…, the very most vulnerable of his features, stood denuded to Hildagarde’s eyes.

He couldn’t move; his legs would not comply. Instead he managed what he supposed to be as dignified a stance as he could…as Hilda had come here, found his most intimate of sancta, and now looked upon his most intimate of states. Her tongue wet her rose-pink lips, eyes gleaming.

"You are so unreasonably beautiful…. Not a man alive could look as you do and escape the perils of it." Between her thighs, her delicate silks had begun to wet to her. He gazed upon, and treasured, the way the fabric curved with her mound…shining there, that sweetness.

He dropped to his knees, unable to remain standing a moment more. Her eyes followed his in their orbits——looking past her own frame to his, the way he trembled erect.

One hand slipped to the end of that heavenly trail, lifted the hem…. Slowly up her legs, the cream-pale softness of her. Impulsively he sank mouth-first to her feet, kissed them with the fervor of a penitent. And still those fingers tugged…, up and up, the gradually flushing curves of her thighs so close to paradise…. Her other hand reached for his chin, lifted it to look at the hunger in his eyes.

"You would look upon someone who is seen as frigid, and scorned,” she whispered, sadly there. "What makes you want a woman who cannot be loved by the man she is wed to?"

"He’s a fool, Hildagarde, never should you be disgraced…. Your hair is like the very sun, the richness of the fields…And all of your form the bounty of the earth herself." If he could drink from his lady’s sweet river, if she would give him her love…. 

"If you will love me," Her words were a husk, "then give me a reason to remain."

"My queen——!"

No further words. None needed. Only the lock of her thighs around his face, the shudder of her sex beneath his tongue. What lack he had found was banished; strength and manner clashed together, she flowed with ecstasies. All he was denied before could shield itself no more from him. She gasped, she seized for his hair, she wrenched the tallest of his feathers from his head with her bliss. And still he advanced, he gave her every reason he could to never leave him.... To the heights of her satisfaction, her nails piercing into his shoulders, her breathless cries of his name. 

Wet with her pleasures he rose, keened to that bastion of flesh she made. Her arms like tender vines, her mouth a panting, dewy flower only exceeded between her thighs, she pulled him in...reached her slender hand between their bodies, to touch and tease what would never cease to desire her.

"Have I my reign, Hildagarde?" For he would have an answer before he moved an inch. She had eloped from her lord and husband for Kuja's sight alone.

Those glistening eyes. The way she wet her lips with that sweet pink tongue...a welcome in itself, but he needed her words....

She beckoned with those fingers, kissed him below as her mouth did above. "Come here," she said again, and all was made clear to him. Between those parting fingers and what they opened...into heaven, into paradise! How soft and small she was, how tightly she held him. Her head nestled to his shoulder, her arms around his back.... And all of her like a visceral pulse, the instinctive and primitive, the heaven and hell entwined. For was she here?  _ Did  _ he touch her as he so desired, or did fantasy alone tempt his senses?

Who could know? The heat of her, the musk of their bodies...the way she moved with his advance, sheathed him with every thrust.... If she were here, she'd defied his every snare to reach him, and fulfilled the cry of his soul.

The candles froze around him, one by one——inky wicks stopped still to smolder, threads of smoke obscuring the stars. Night stole the sun away and smothered it. Cold and weeping, he sought with his hands and only found velvet, tasseled pillows, coverlets—— The softness his bed, the silken warmth of Hilda banished away!

His clothes lay in the heap he'd left them in. The candles had melted, just as he'd seen! And he lay caught between life and death here in the darkness, in his anguish and need he despaired. The blanket he seized over him smelled of his dreaming hours, the sweat of his frame alone.

_ Why? In my torment I dream of no one else.... When will this spell over me end?! _

The walls gleamed with traitorous ice. He had not been spared his desires...nor could he exceed them or drive them away. Whatever came, he was bound to it——and in such hopelessness, Kuja closed his eyes and surrendered. 

...To sleep, the cruel thing it was.


	3. III

Sunrise came and went without Hilda. Quina dealt patiently with Eiko’s presence underfoot; she’d wanted to be a chef, after all, and if the gourmand couldn’t teach her no one could.

"Hey! Stay out of the food,” Eggmeister scolded. "It is not ready."

"Don’t break anything——” Dishmeister had too much in his arms; two furry hands reached for half the stack of plates, freeing him of his burden. "Ah! Too many people in here——” He stumbled past Freya and to the table, while Zidane wondered what in the heck had happened to Hilda. He’d been about to tell her where Kuja had hidden himself away…. But looking to Steiner told him nothing.

"Okay, spill it, Rusty. Where’s Hilda?"

The knight shook his head, where he sat with a wealth of meat and a tankard of ale. Though he usually worried about everyone here…that was a stretch to think of, Steiner actually relaxing. Stiff guy almost never did.

"So she’s out there,” Beatrix answered at least one of his questions, addressing her husband. "Has she made it yet? Or am I to wonder where the devil that libertine went off to?"

"Now, now. That _libertine,_ as you call him, saved this world. I'll not have a comrade spoken of like that when he predicted our union.” He bit into a firmly-cased sausage and grinned unevenly. "Besides, with Hildagarde’s fiery blood, he has a great deal of work in his future to keep any trade routes running, and her the only visitor he'll have for some time."

"Conde Petie was amenable to trading with the Black Mages."

"That they were, dear. I must believe they'll do so with him as well. And with the amount of distance they already keep from others, it would benefit both of them."

"Bor-riiiing.” Zidane grabbed for a trencher. “So you’re telling me she found out. How? Who could've told her before I did? Because Garnet retired to her chambers, and unless Hilda's been spying on us…."

Steiner shook his head. "Mages have their ways. Perhaps Kuja visited her in his dreams, or she reached him in hers. Stranger things have occurred in this world."

"Yeah, like our existences. Ah well."

"Will you ever tell us where he’s gone, or are you still convinced I'd kill him? Even being stronger than you didn’t help me against _him;_ the man nearly ended me with naught but his bare hands in Burmecia. He didn’t need magic to utterly overpower me." Beatrix frowned.

"Yeah, and you knocked the brains out of Sir Fratley." He shook his head; away from him Freya flinched, stiffening upright in the room.

"He plucked my eye from my head, Zidane…. And never would he have been taken by the wiles of his ruler into committing atrocities. On a moral scale alone, the man is my better and I accept defeat. I only wish I could undo the damage I did to not only him but his countrymen."

Steiner frowned there, staring into his ale. "…My dear, Sir Fratley is visiting our kingdom today. I believe he would appreciate your words, if only to assure himself and Freya that there would be no further conflict."

"I am not the match for a Dragon Knight’s honor in battle. I would admit it even to their Lord Gizamaluke if he still lived."

"I suppose the war with Kuja taught us all something,” Freya said painfully there. "He was an even stronger element than our most powerful patron…. Wasted an entire country with only his life force at thirteen, was able to destroy the eidolons within it, and barely suffered a mote of damage from the King of Dragons himself."

"Madain Sari was destroyed by a _thirteen-year-old..._ . _"_

"Kinda puts into perspective how unprepared we were." Eiko shook her head, settling down into her seat beside Beatrix. "I hope Mom finds him. I mean, yeah, he almost killed me out of madness, but once he realized he didn’t have to use eidolons to kick Garland’s ass, he just went and did it. He didn’t have any further issue with me as a person, a summoner, or anything."

"You wouldn’t mind having Kuja as a father."

"Oh, hell no! He knows more magic than I do, he could teach me something. Besides, as long as I have a father who isn’t gonna freak out on me when I do stupid stuff…. Kuja’s freaking out at himself right now. That’s why he ran off to wherever the heck he is." She hunted in the fruit bowl…frowning there, at the number of kupo nuts. "…He was almost a moogle for how much he loved these things, Steiner…."

The knight nodded, sighing dreadfully. "It’s rather odd…how someone so small changed my world view from one of constant, mindless devotion to the realm. I think I began to question everything I knew the moment I became friends with Master Vivi."

"Maybe Kuja can help." She edged over; seven little mages had approached quietly with plates. Two looked silently up.

"T-talking about Daddy again…?"

"We miss him sore,” Steiner whispered. "And if we could have him back, we would wish to." Though he hugged the little one close to his chest. "You are such delightful lads…it’s a shame you weren't able to meet him."

"But we did,” Three tweeted. "He was asleep. He didn’t move."

The adults in the room exchanged glances; Zidane wondered who would fuck it up by telling them Vivi was dead. Seemed like a thing Eiko would do—— But she caught his glance and shook her head hard. Thankfully not.

"He meant a great deal to many people,” Beatrix agreed softly.

They ate in relative silence then, each with their own thoughts about Vivi, more than likely. But Zidane wondered something else as well——if Kuja had indeed been able to visit Hilda in her dreams, what awaited Cidolfas’s fleeing wife when she reached Ipsen’s Castle?

Hopefully, he fretted, none of those traps were deadly….

-

_Tell no one._ That’d been the decision she made when she departed. Anyone to see her had gotten the barest of nods if that; she’d give no one a hint as to where she was going, and only Zidane would know of it now. Perhaps Mikoto as well, but the girl kept all of her secrets to herself, even the ones Garland had made her privy to concerning Kuja.

She’d gone along only as the merest of afterthoughts, Hilda guessed, and planned to stay on the ship unless she was needed. Poor girl didn’t have the idea of how to lie and likely never would.

"We are reaching the castle,” she said behind the former Queen of Lindblum; the older woman leapt where she stood. How had she been able to creep up behind her? “I am excited to see whether he is healthy. It has been a concern of mine."

"So you knew the entire time, then."

"Of course." The naïve Genome maid cocked her head. "But if I am instructed by my eldest brother to tell no one, I will tell no one. I would not impugn his sense of security in any way. I must tell you, Lady Hildagarde, he left specific instructions not to be disturbed. If you happen to enrage him…."

She shook her head, sighing. "He has grown lonely there, Mikoto. He needs some soul to love him, to cherish his life as much as it deserved to be in his youth."

"So…. You wish to be his mate."

"I suppose you could relate it that way. Humans are very different from Genomes, child, they rarely mate for life. When one chooses a lover, the other must decide to remain with them or leave. And your own exotic appearance may have been what Cid was looking for as a further conquest; he is one of those many souls who chooses a person for the _moment,_ not the lifetime. It distresses and disturbs me to think of him craving someone so young."

The girl shook her head. "I am sexually mature, but I do not desire him and told him such. His persistence was unsettling." A little noise left her there, not quite a sigh, and she admitted, “I think I have understood what 'love' was, but only once. It was before the Black Mages died."

"You were in love with one of them?" How queer the idea. They likely hadn’t even known of such a thing among themselves.

Mikoto lowered her head. "I saw what love was to _them._ Whenever one of his fellows stopped, their undertaker of sorts…288…. He would bury them, speak kindly over them. And the last of them——” She barely managed her words here, "I think the last of them was Vivi himself. And then 288 sat down at his bedside…and he told me he could no longer stay. He begged me to understand…. I was installed as the leader of the village in his absence. That night he walked out to the graveyard, he looked at the men he had buried—— In the morning, he hadn’t moved. He stood there stopped…he had literally expired in his sentinel position. If there is 'love' beyond the matrimonial kind, I am sure they all knew of it from him, in their last days."

"It must be so." She looked worriedly over the land below them——there was no place to dock. The airship would either have to attempt a water landing, or she’d have to make her move among air traffic that now included silver dragons…much like the one Kuja had kept. The lead of them stared at her but did nothing, simply kept pace with the Hilda Garde IV.

Beside her the Genome looked over the side. "There is a cavern, Lady Hilda. Make for it…it seems to be your safest option."

"I suppose so. Do you know anything about the traps?"

"I was not made aware of any. I will accompany you into the castle to see they do not harm either of us…. Though I confess I am not surprised Kuja would place such things in your way. He has sought to be alone for enough time that this may not be the best moment to approach him. And with our people’s seasonal disturbance…. Frankly, he may be feeling too primal to leave the castle at all. The dragons are guarding him as though he is one of them."

No surprise. They flanked her on every side now, keeping a fair distance from the ship but unwilling to leave it alone…and in the lower cliffsides, she saw the cavern. It looked as though it would be overly tight to maneuver.

"Shall I?"

She balked at the girl’s suggestion. "Why would you ask me such things?"

"The Invincible is far larger and more difficult to fly. I assure you I am perfectly capable of doing so——I am nearly as skilled as he is with them."

She knew the area, the monsters, the very things Hilda might be stumbling into for love, so…. "Very well." It wouldn’t be the most foolish thing she’d managed today. Mikoto took her place without a pause, lowered the altitude with a speed she almost feared. She’d taken that kind of pace when running from Cid the first time.

"There’s about a ten-foot berth on either side, if that,” she realized. "If the dragons follow us…." Good heavens! They took the space themselves, one after another—— For so many to make it, there was an exit. And Mikoto simply folded the outer propellers, tilted the ship enough to avoid several rock formations…. She hadn’t been jesting at all. She might be better than Hilda was at flying, for her strange confidence on the matter.

It’d probably been how Cid had found his own will to speak to her, the wretch. He might've asked her some innocent-sounding question, like whether she wanted to see his hangar and the other ships…. Poor fool. Maybe his next conquest’s husband would kill him in a jealous rage. _He might've done so to me, if he’d seriously suspected Kuja of claiming me…the higher of state a man is, the worse his temper tends to be._

Kuja’s might still be world-ending, after all this time.

-

Warm breaths shoved his hair away from his face. He buried himself all the closer to his pillows and velvet——too short a dream, too cold a bed. He’d stay here and starve, if he could only go back to what he’d seen last night behind his closed eyes…. But a huge, scaly snout prodded his head, a steaming tongue emerged to flatten his feathers to his scalp. 

_"Ugh..._...Fine…I'll get up if you move….” Nude around an agitated dragon was a bad thing to be. Why were they so active today?

He knuckled the sleep from his eyes, sat up to look around. Nothing really amiss. But rising from the pallet, peering out the window into bright light—— The dragons had clustered around their cavern, waiting for something inside it…or staring at whatever it was. Some monster, maybe a chocobo they were intent on hunting?

A tiny blonde speck emerged in the sun…then another. Only one of them was a Genome. "So he brought you here…,” Kuja quietly mourned, before his eyes adjusted enough to see more color. _Mikoto_ had come with whomever this was, in full defiance of his wishes. He’d have to keep himself away from them…he didn’t know his guest’s intent, and if it was who he feared, she wouldn’t be alone for long. Her wayward rakehell of a husband would come after her and ruin this place.

She’d abandoned petticoats and other fineries, to approach him in likely the simplest of her gowns…her headdress hadn’t dazzled in the sun, just her hair. As pale and lovely as the rays themselves; he burned and shuddered where he stood.

 _But I can’t. Not yet…not until I know her reasons._ Most of the traps were avoidable, noisy things when they tripped. But the one he feared most was simply out in the open—— Waiting, for a move he hoped wouldn’t be made by Mikoto herself.

-

"Everything’s so quiet here,” Hilda marveled. "He’s truly cultivated a strange kind of peace…." The dragons had simply let her pass, watched her now with gleaming eyes where they rested in a curled, feathery heap. A whelp wandered out to quickly be seized back by its mother…. Curious, the lot of them.

Mikoto nodded, brushing past rampant greenery to barely touch her foot to the ground. "…Not this way. He’s set a few pitfalls out here.” Listening, then determining the path with a few thrown stones, she passed through the wild growth with barely a pause. Hilda followed what she could see of the girl’s footsteps——now and then looking around, to what she realized were perils only obvious from the other side. Some of them looked as though they’d _kill_ anyone who fell victim.

"He’s intent on his solace,” she realized there, “in a way I never knew anyone was."

“I told you as much.”

Yes, she had. Suddenly Hilda felt ridiculous for even coming here——the time Kuja had spent removing anyone’s access to him, the idea that some of these could've killed her…. Where she approached with Mikoto, she realized she might have to ask forgiveness before she said a word else.

The girl crept to the stairs, testing stones here and there. Largely, the steps had remained untouched…how odd. Perhaps for how many people would've died before reaching them. "Be very careful,” she warned as she ascended. "Do nothing without my lead."

She reached the topmost step——And vanished!

Where had she gone? For it seemed she’d merely _touched_ the last one, nearly to the doors…, and now Hilda stood alone to navigate the maze Ipsen’s Castle might've become. If nothing else, for the whims of its enigmatic owner. The castle occupied the same space as Ordeal’s ruins…. The very place the Light Warriors had once intruded upon, and she did now. Avoiding the last step——with an awkward, unsteady hop——she made her way to the doors, searching for a leak of mana.

Cold air rushed over her ankles…slowly, those heavy barred things began to open. She hadn’t come armed for whatever monsters he might keep…. But peering into the dark was no less safe than remaining out here, with the crashing underbrush and whatever was in it.

"…Hello…? _Kuja?"_

  
  
  


She turned fast around, blinking in the room. "Where did Hildagarde go…?” In the shadows…the last pillar, the table of herbal preparations…. The cauldron used to remake Vivi. She’d somehow bypassed everything else and ended up in his sanctum. But had it been meant for her, or Hilda?

"I know you’re here,” she whispered. "Garland always said you were tricksy."

"That man should never have spoken of me." Glittering ice wove its way over the wall. "Mikoto, what are you doing here? I told Zidane I didn’t want to be disturbed."

"Cidolfas has betrayed Hilda again——” She shook her head. "And he wished to do so with me. He would have if the Minister had not caught him…. The regent attempted to disrobe me. I did not know what to do, I am not physically strong enough to resist someone with no warning."

"And had you struck him, you’d be killed." The older Genome slowly emerged behind the final pillar, face caught in an expression she’d never seen. His skin had seemed to pale here; everything about him looked colder, physically stronger but emotionally weaker. And he turned around at a quiet noise far below them.

"Hildagarde has made it inside,” Mikoto guessed. “I am surprised she missed your land traps."

"Those wouldn’t have caught her. They'll trip at anyone my weight or near it. But why, Mikoto, _why?_ What makes her seek me now, when my own madness almost got her killed by the philandering fop she married?"

Her hand crept over her mouth to stifle a laugh. She hadn’t expected any humor in this. "I do see the farce behind his behavior. But she has grown tired, and he told her yesterday, after she caught him, that he wouldn’t turn the regency over to her in any case. He requires a biological heir to take his position and will accept no less."

"I see." Kuja’s countenance darkened there. "So the wretch will abandon his wife and the daughter who loves him…all for the sake of his own seed."

"You must shelter her. She has nowhere else to go."

"Neither of them have anywhere else,” he agreed. "Any practitioner of white magic would offer sanctuary if they had it…." A faraway look shone in his eyes, as though from memory. "You didn’t happen to tell her the traps aren’t exclusively outside?"

"I did not know you had any in here." She turned for the pillar, but one long hand stopped her still.

"You can’t get out that way. That was why this room lay untouched…." He sighed angrily there. "I'll send you back to her ship, but you need to take it home. Fly it back to Alexandria and tell Zidane there’s nothing wrong…I will send for Eiko when I have removed or disabled what traps she could fall into. If Hilda’s come all this way, I'll hear her petition before I decide whether she has to leave…. Even if they must, I'll have them kept safely in the mansion. I wouldn’t dream of leaving either of them vulnerable to him."

She searched his eyes, really stared into the gentian depths.

"Is she safe here, Kuja?"

"Mikoto, she’s like a rainstorm in a parched desert. Of course she'll be safe." Shaking his head, he slid his fingers into his hair and tried for elegance; she’d surprised him, apparently in the very little he wore here. Nothing but some strangely loose-legged linen pants. "I really should dress properly if I’m going to meet her, though."

"Please take good care of her. She is as pained and lonesome as you." The younger Genome knew he wouldn’t nervously preen himself without some vulnerability behind the act. “You were the only one to dispute her awful union with the regent…. You cared for her. She remembered it."

Kuja crossed to the window, shoulders sagging.

"I dream of her. I yearn for her. I've thirsted for her since the day we met. Any concept of desire I have ever had quickly attached itself to the sight of _only_ her. No creature on this planet has attracted and felled me so deeply. I assure you, Mikoto……no harm will come to Hildagarde."

So open, yet weak were his words. Garland would've told him he was a fool, that all mortal things came to an end, and Kuja had not been made to love or be loved. He would've informed the mage that for him, love was impossible to obtain.

But by the look in those eyes, she knew their master had lied.

-

The ship lifted off without a hitch. She maneuvered herself from the cavern, followed for a league by what dragons wished to——and then, the Hilda Garde IV a disappearing speck on the horizon, only two souls remained in this idyll. The dragons themselves returned to what other plans they had; they could not be tamed, only looked after. A mercy Hilda hadn’t come with a retinue.

He sighed…he hadn’t meant to tell Mikoto so much of his thoughts. They seemed to scatter impotently in his brain when he attempted to control them now——at other times weighing him, like stones slowly heaped onto a prisoner’s back.

He’d have to go to Hilda now; she’d made that clear. But what could he say to the woman who had commanded his thoughts, whether dreaming or waking, since he had met her in 1799? It’d been but two years, he could not remain so weak. And yet the thought of keeping her here, safe, feeding her whatever delights she wished for, doing anything she asked of him…. It empowered him all the more to keep Cidolfas away. No more would that bastard jackanapes come storming down a hall, ermine-trimmed cape a war banner behind him. If he could not love his wife as well as she deserved, and she fled him….

His loss was Kuja’s gain, and loss it would remain to the man they called regent. She’d not be left to a man who rutted mindlessly with other women. Hildagarde deserved nothing so base, and by Chaos, she wouldn’t have it here. She would be worshipped as the goddess she was——freed like the temptress she became in his dreams.

He stood in thrall here, hand over his pounding heart. _She came. As much as I feared and hoped she would, she came…. Now I can show her the delights I've prepared for those I love; she'll rule here at my side. And if she must go——,_ His fingers shivered there, _then I will allow her to. I cannot keep her caged…I would only free her from the man who did._

A bolt of mana tore upward through the castle.

"She triggered something,” he realized, "one of the worse traps…." If it were the one he thought—— He slipped into the only better garments he had ready, dashing closed-eyed to the pillar.

_I've got to get to her, before she finds out how deadly this place really is._


	4. IV

A glass.

A glass of wine, she reflected where she sat, that was all it took to have her bound here…. Beneath a curved, transparent prison, which she realized in short time was the very glass she’d touched. No wine inside; it’d only looked that way.

And now, barely three inches high, she waited for the inevitable—— A monster, or a six-foot-six Genome who’d be a towering behemoth now. "A Mini spell suspended in glass. Or simply cast on the air  _ around _ the glass. Where has Mikoto gotten to…?"

The table vibrated beneath her. Footsteps sounded like the roar of thunder…only Kuja, she prayed,  _ let it only be him who roams this place. No monsters…. _

Before her, the dark split…. A vein of light, between the doors. Mikoto?

Not with those long fingers. Nor the weighty, flowing mane, the spike of several feathers above it…The first step had transported the Genome girl elsewhere, perhaps to him, and he’d come back through the gateway in her stead.

This would be so humiliating to explain. How she’d been captured by the simplest-looking thing here…. “Hello, Kuja."

He might not hear her, but as he approached, he certainly  _ saw _ her. That form seemed all the deadlier now; each of his fingers was longer than the entirety of her frame. His brows raised in an almost caressing way, a weary or perplexed smile touched his Cupid-bow lips. 

“Why, Hildagarde…. I never expected to see you here."

"You told me to fear the traps,” She stared into his eyes, “and you were right. Would you mind letting me out?"

He sighed affectionately. "But of course. You came here to ask for help? I'd be glad to hear what you have to say." Gently he lifted the glass, enough for her to make her way out, but not enough to right it. Perhaps that was where the trap took its hold.

She brushed down her skirts, standing by those terribly long fingers. "However long will this spell last?” For knowing Kuja, it could be permanent.

"Three days. It wasn’t meant for you, though; the first one was."

"The doors,” she realized, “the one Mikoto tripped…." Poor girl had taken the trap for her. Who knew what’d happened? “Is she all right, Kuja?"

"Of course. I sent her home in your airship, as she had to be the one flying into the cavern so quickly…. If you’d come alone, the dragons wouldn’t have let you inside. Only the two of them were close enough to this place to be allowed without a question." He’d even had the silver dragons on alarm for him…She really did owe him her apologies, for coming here so soon and in this frantic state.

She barely touched one massive finger. "I’m so sorry to intrude. I only wish this had been planned…. Your possession of my fragile person is the only thing he would hate more, far greater a scourge, than turning him into some creature and leaving for parts unknown. I believe he would've tolerated seeing me with another  _ woman _ better than he would this."

"He was mad with the thought I might've known you,” Kuja whispered, his breath warming her in the frigid room. This close she could see the minuscule hairs that clung to his skin, downy and pale as they were. His eyelashes formed perfect fans. “But then a man who cannot satisfy his wife will pass judgment on anyone he thinks would do better."

"I wasn’t even allowed to grow my hair, nor divest myself of it wherever else I wanted to. He treated me like something he wished only to have, not to cherish."

"Property, Hildagarde. You were property of the state."

She threw her hands through her hair, anxiously. "Yes. And when I made my way inside the castle, I saw the glass and thought to refresh myself…. Now I am confined to this smallest of forms for three full days?"

"I am afraid so. But as I said, this one was not meant for you. It was intended for someone like Cid, who would seek to get off the table and then be eaten by a Mimic. Three days is long enough for the  _ aqua regia _ in their stomachs to digest a victim completely."

"Three minutes would work." She recalled how brutal that form of acid was. “Do tell me. Was I meant to come directly to you, when I reached the castle?"

"I’d planned it that way, but plans often go awry." His hand slowly tilted upward, offering his bared palm. "If you trusted me enough to come here, I'll take you to where you'll be safer. You can see exactly what the first trap would've done…and then I can undo it on our way through. Privacy would be better held now."

Carefully she gathered her skirts, stepped onto the silken stretch of muscles. Her fingers nearly fit into the whorled prints on his skin.  _ "Oh——!” _ Too damp in places; she slipped and landed with a leg over his thumb.

The tip of his right index finger touched her shoe. "How very dainty,” he marveled. "But these are the shoes you roam a castle in. You dressed for demure attention, not for cutting a swathe through wildlands."

"Perhaps I dressed to seduce a stunning Genome lad." She slipped close enough to take hold of his hand as best she could; if he dropped her, she was entirely finished from the height alone. “But I suppose it can wait for other times, better surroundings."

"My inner rooms will be just right,” he murmured, his fingers slowly closing together…, only enough to hide her frame. She fitted herself to the curve; more things than Mimics might be outside, smaller birds of prey perhaps, who’d seize a scrambling morsel whether it were human or not.

His frame moved around her, below her. Headed back to the doors, she guessed, and the trap that’d nearly saved them both this trouble.

  
  
  


How precious and tiny her form in his hand—— How nervously she panted, like a rabbit’s shivering in an open meadow. If she’d only touched the first trap and not the second…. The snares outside weren’t anything that’d catch a woman. Quina would've been too large, Freya too quick, and Beatrix too feisty. Garnet would've demurred coming in completely. Zidane might've fallen half into one, but only Cid or his like could've been fully bound.

"The deadlier traps were made for men,” he explained in a whisper. "Someone like Cid bumbling into my solace. But Steiner and Amarant would've been too broad of form; the regent wouldn’t come alone, but with those armored lads of his. They’d've been held in those very easily, though they wouldn’t have been killed. Him…. Half of them could've broken his slatternly neck. I am ashamed of what he’s done to you. It blights the souls of all men to  _ think _ of it."

She relaxed in his hold, enough for him to turn slowly about, show her the pillar. "This was where you were meant to enter through." He gently caressed her hair with a fingertip. "No Mini, no false glass of wine. I don’t have a glass small enough for you now…, though if you wish, I do still have the drink."

"Perhaps some cooled water instead." She clung to his upturned fingers now. "Or tea…. After this bind of mine I rather don’t know what wine would do."

"A good point,” he conceded to that chirping wisdom. She sounded like a little sparrow in his hand. "But I ought to set you down so you won’t fall. A pillow, perhaps? I have a great deal of them. Or maybe the table, while I devise something safe for you to rest in…. Ah! I know just where.” At his table, a globe he kept of Gaia and its inner, former space where Terra lay, sat largely hollow where he’d removed the offending chamber piece by piece. Only the modeled twin moons lay inside now…. He pulled them from the smoked glass sphere, set them aside. And a pair of newly-synthesized stockings, gently folded, made a silken bed for his lovely, diminutive visitor.

He set her carefully inside, sat to look at her.

"You needn’t apologize for coming here." He had to convince her first of that fact. "I’m terribly glad to see you…. After how long that wretch has been mistreating you, wasting your love, I feared his temper would overcome his senses and he’d end up burying you. Men of high state typically do."

She leaned on the softened, open curve of the globe, lovelier even this way than in the hands of an impotent cuckolder. That was really the rub; Cid couldn’t control himself, he didn’t respond to adult women the way he did to pubescent girls. He’d married one, for pity’s sakes, and she sat here now, feeling abandoned and at her worst. Kuja half wanted to crush Cidolfas like an ant, half hoped the bastard never came here. He’d disarmed the trap on their way up; no one would reach this floor again unless they got through the entire castle, and even the boldest of Amarant Coral’s endeavors hadn’t reached this room.

"I thought that very thing myself, Kuja." Her voice carried better from inside the globe. “I believe I've grown too old for him; he wants the  _ ingénues _ he can seduce, rather than the women who will hold him to a certain standard. Or when he takes a woman, she has long hair and is otherwise bared of it."

"The very thing you are not allowed,” he observed, feeling miserable for her. She hadn’t been allowed riding clothes, barely had her own rights to leave the castle, and she fled Cid for his inability to honor her. Poor dear sparrow. He’d keep her safe from this moment on. And the little finch she’d adopted; no sense in leaving that fledgling to ruin.

Sparrows and finches were lovely little birds anyway. He smiled the barest he could there, thinking of how happy they could be. Especially if he managed to revive his little raven.

Hilda looked as though she’d flushed there. He drew an observation glass up, held it in front of her—— Heavens, yes. Her face had suffused with the prettiest florid color. 

"I do not mean to smile in a way that might glorify your ill fortune. I was thinking of what we could know if Vivi were to wake again…. A mother and father, raising two children, or even his cluster as well. And if the grey in Cidolfas’s hair is any indication, Hilda my sweet, he will never have what he sorely desires. The Fabool dynasty will end."

"He's but a decade your senior."

"Precisely. Full grey, even white, in a man so young…. Why, he looks as though he’s twice my age and more. The elders say that’s a sign of impotence, often infertility. And the reason he hated me as deeply as he did…I suspect he knows I’m neither."

How further she blushed now. Her eyes wandered in their orbits. "That could not be far from the truth, Kuja, he despises you. And even the  _ idea _ that you’d touched me had him raging. He confined me to my rooms, wouldn’t let me leave the castle without him…." Sighing there, barely a sound to it, she admitted, “The abduction had him suspecting me more than he did you. I suppose a guilty man will judge everyone."

"That surely is how we behave." Though his own judgments had stemmed from fear, and the idea everyone existed to end him. Garland had instilled that unreasonable paranoia; it was difficult to quash. "I must admit my own thoughts have colored in these few minutes, thinking of just how you meant to seduce me. We have three days until you may command me properly——you may state your case if you like."

She laid hands on her hips, frowning adorably. "Like this, Kuja? You must be mad. What could I possibly do for you in this form?” Maybe she missed how lovely she still was. "I am too small to claim as a paramour would."

"Imagination is a fertile thing.” He lowered from his seat, to kneel in front of the table——only the crown of his head to his eyes above it, just enough to peer up at her. "You dressed to seduce, Hilda…. I would ask you how. Your garments are very lovely…is there anything beneath them?"

Her face colored crimson, like a berry. "You would have me disrobe?" she asked there, tiny hands slowly smoothing her skirts. "Not even Cid has shown such interest in my body…."

"I’m shocked." His brows lowered. "You’re a flawless woman. So very lovely and in your prime…he’s utterly wasted your devotion to him. But even your shoes were enough to give my heart a flutter…. Perhaps begin with them."

Hilda’s tongue barely moistened her lips. She slipped one leg over the side, then the other, sitting on the glass as though it were a balcony ledge. "My shoes. You appreciate such tiny things…?” Slowly she reached for one, slipped it from her foot. “They’re not even fancy…. Just the sort of thing a lady wanders her castle in."

"Ohhh. Exquisite, darling. Those perfect feet." He rose a bit upward, enough to press his lips to that doll-sized foot. "You've been walking so long today. Shall I prepare you a bath?"

She stilled there, staring up into his eyes. "…Your mouth makes me shiver this way, Kuja…. The enormity of it. I could be eaten."

"A terrible waste." He laid a hand aside his forehead. "I’d never consume and digest you. How awful to devour you like some kind of predator, like a snake eating a mouse…. If my mouth touched anything but your foot it would be for pleasure’s sake alone." He brushed her outstretched hand with his lips, as delicately as could be.

Her hands both pressed to his lips. "And your tongue…?"

"I can taste the variety of grapes crushed into wine…the delicacy of your own flavor would not be lost on me.” Barely he parted them, to allow her fingers to wander over it. She leaned on what she touched, stroked the wet muscle with almost a passionate fervor.

"Can you smell my fragrance, Kuja? Is my size yet large enough for that?"

Her hair lifted to his inward breath. "I can taste  _ and _ smell the delights on your skin…only one of which is your perfume. You truly did come here to seduce." He ventured another. "The sachet between your bosoms was filled with red roses. Your chest of drawers has been perfumed with tiger-lilies. How bold of you to wear the flower of hatred around that man."

"And below it…?"

"You disguised it with nothing at all,” he murmured.  _ "Your _ sweetness emerges the victor among the flowers of this world.” How he craved to bury his nose into her skirts. She keened to the heat of his breath, wobbling there in ways he knew were amorous.

Slowly she slipped her other shoe off; her stockinged feet were a pleasure to behold. Such gossamer-thin delicates, on those shapely legs. If she would but mount his lips and give herself to his ardor.

She lifted her skirts enough to show the garters holding her silks in place; barely he nodded, tongue drowning in his need to taste her. Lovely plump thighs. The sweet cavern they hid would be heaven itself, in any size whatsoever. If he could untie those tiny ribbons——she did for him, hooded eyes promising many things.

Her stockings presented no challenge. She slid them down her legs and away, the cream-pale skin they’d hidden no less silky. One foot, then another, was worshipped where she sat…he could nearly fit the tip of his nose between her thighs. And what might be softer than the wingbeats of a hummingbird thrummed to his touch…. Her heart, beating as fast as his if not more for their passions.

She stared up into his eyes, tiny hands reaching to stroke his lips. "This is so strange…. I never thought a status effect would excite me so much. I'll never look at Mini quite the same way again."

"Nor will I." Her touch was as delicate as a butterfly’s. If she had gauzy, scaled wings…. His precious lady knelt, pressed her mouth to the barest bit of his she could. "Oh, Hilda. My darling." One hand rose, stilled before her; she wrapped her arms around his middle finger and clung.

"Such a bewildering adventure. I could never know this with anyone else…." She drew his thumb to the plush of her bosoms. "Touch me…but be gentle."

His heart pounded. "As you wish, my lady." Slow, smoothing strokes…she wore no corset, simply a chemisette beneath her dress. Closing his eyes, concentrating on her frame with a feather-light touch, he paused…. The smallest of points there were her nipples, stiffened with need. How he could relate, but in an organ far too large for her now.

"Kuja…." Her little voice plied him on. "More, darling…more…." More? He knew just what, then…. He could wait no longer. Slowly his right hand lowered behind her, swept her up.

_ "Oh—! Oh, Kuja, be gentle——" _

"But of course," he husked, desperately aching inside. His heart trembled as he bore her from the table, to his thickly stuffed pallet. She clung to his fingers, stared wide-eyed at what she might believe to be her death…how he surely frightened her!

Gently he lowered himself to the softness of his bed, held her while he unbuckled the belt holding his pauldrons together. "I would never hurt you, Hilda…. It would be like harming myself." He turned where he sat, placed her onto the softest of his pillows. "My beauty…."

"My lord…." Such a tiny little twitter there. She tucked her skirts beneath her, watched with gleaming eyes as he stripped. "You are so lovely…. It makes my heart ache to think this is only for me."

"Always," he whispered.

A soft stillness came to the room. Her breaths, his thundering heart…. When at last he sat naked before her, her face had colored like a tomato. Her hands pressed to her breasts.

"Kuja, your body…. You are divine to every reach of it." She trembled as he did, slowly she reclined into the pillow. Whether she thought he might shrink himself, or could release her from her own effect…She could not know he planned to do neither. “I trust you,” she breathed, “I know you would not harm me…. It is only instinct that makes my body seize."

"A natural one." He tipped slowly to his side, lying there beside her to look at the way she hovered between fear and ecstasy. He’d have to assuage it…. “We have not evolved so far as not to fear predation." A soft stroke of his fingertip up her leg, inching her skirts with it. "I will give you the same of myself, Hilda, you were never intended to be so vulnerable."

Her tiny hands reached for his finger, pulled it…skirts between the hold, slowly exposing both the ruffled edge of the chemisette…. And the silky-downy dusting of gold on her mons, the sweet and splendored sight he’d imagined but never seen until now.

His dreams had lacked in little. She shone more, the ruddy pink slit he could barely discern had swollen wet with desire. Her gown made very little protest; he carefully drew it up between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. Now the firm mounds of her breasts, nipples taut and needful…. She worked her way out of the garment as he tugged, to lie nude on his pillow, ready for all he required of her by the excitement in her eyes.

He would not disappoint. Slowly, gently, he traced his fingertip over her breasts, her nipples, massaged with the time of her gasps. Wet slick motions onto the pad of his thumb told of her need…the way she reached for the digit, rubbed herself slowly onto it. 

"My darling, how you tempt me…." He drew his hand away…, measured every note of her there, as he licked that smallest of dewdrops on his skin. "I cannot, Hilda, I cannot wait…I will not hurt you if I can avoid it, but…." No longer in the pillow, but in his left hand, right leg splayed over the side of his palm.

Bashful little cries, she still feared how close he would come. He settled his hand into the pillow, tilted it up at the wrist…treasuring to his eyes the way she gleamed. "I worshipped you this way in my dreams,” he whispered, and drew close to slowly lick his way up her thighs. She hadn’t been so wrong to fear, his tongue covered both of them…and now,  _ now  _ he tasted her at her source.

_ "——Ah, Kuja——" _ Her arms sought his middle finger, she held tightly to it…. Legs shaking, skin smeared with his passion—— Bucking, yes, she rode his tongue as though he himself were a silver dragon…. Cried, gasped, worked herself to his fervid licking. He couldn’t even see the sweet jewel of her clitoris, but by Chaos, he had it in thrall. He had  _ her, _ she desired him as he was….

Tormented sound broke off into sobs, she ground herself harder onto him, burying her face into his philtrum…, legs wobbling, feet seeking purchase at the corners of his lips. Wisely he hid his teeth——oh, the terror if she slipped on those planes! But she grasped for skin, for the edge of his upper lip, for anything as he passionately drank of her.

"I c-can’t,” she breathed, “I’m——” Sweet rivulets on his tongue! Agony, ecstasy, all of it, to know he could not lie with her for three days more…. Not unless he gave himself to the same curse she had upon her. “Kuja, I need you—— Don’t torture me, end this difference of ours in any way you can!"

"As it must be." And rarely did the effect work on him. Reflect, to protect her from the other perils here…. And a whispered phrase blew time and space apart around him, sent him crashing into pearled softness.

He blinked——felt the plush around him, reached for thread he realized was a single golden hair. "...Oh my.... I did intend to give the same trust to you, but somehow I managed——" To shrink himself _and_ bounce enough mana into her frame to reverse the spell....

And now it might be him so trapped, for three full days. Kuja stared up at the immense beauty Hilda made now...No wonder she'd shivered. She could tear him in two with those delicate fingers.

"Oh, Kuja!" Her voice was as the clap of thunder, or the speech of a goddess. He'd tried to shrink himself to match her. "You poor dear man. Let me help you...."

Her small—— _ yet enormous! _ ——hand reached for him, wrapped fingers gently around his body. "Even now you are beautiful," she whispered. "And here I can care for you.... Don't despair. I'll give you all you need."

"You already do." Just the shining of her eyes. The pursing of those silken lips. Though he could barely hold a finger, he did...pressed his lips to it in devotion. "All these days I have desired you. My dreams tormented me."

The mountainous beauty he'd thirsted for slipped her freed hand over him, shrouding him in flesh. "Let us see about that bath, Kuja."


	5. V

"How darling you are." Past the door was another chamber…several, in fact; that pillar opened up to a floor. What Kuja kept to himself was lovelier than she’d imagined.

A deep, black-marble tub, what looked to be iridescent veins threading through it…. His travels had given him knowledge she’d never laid eyes on. Pipes one would expect in an airship’s engine held not heat, but water; turning a clawed knob above the tub started rivulets, then a rapidly steaming rush.

"How cunning this is…." She turned to look against the wall; what cushioned apparatus sat there, more of the same leading _from_ it? “I daresay…. A water closet. And this canopy above it…."

He moved in the safety of her hand. Hilda slowly opened it, looking into his eyes…lovely fellow, what was he saying? She couldn’t hear him over the water.

"I’m sorry, dear. What was that?"

"Plumbing,” his twittering timbre said there. "It’s become an interest of mine to keep every hygienic invention I learn of. They aren’t difficult to build, and the work is well worth the efforts…." She would have to agree; the similar fixture beside it had to be a bidet. It was precious few the individuals who had one outside a royal palace.

"Masterful man." Always clean, sensual, flawless…. Whereas Cid tumbled out of bed, clothed himself, and stuffed his codpiece with a satchel of something. If they were being honest, Kuja’s prominently-worn undergarment was more a frontis, as everything behind it was the mage’s own flesh…only the thought of being on that ship again, given the chance to truly offer herself to him as she had in her dreams….

She’d grown wet thinking of it. She made her way back to the tub, felt——too hot. Awfully so. "I'll have to let some of the water out to cool it…."

"Don’t strain yourself,” that sweetly purring morsel offered. The smallest of touches to the water broke those vapors around them. "A bit more, yes…." And her trailing fingers found the loveliest heat, his rime had soothed away the fire. Naked and pulsing for his touch——three days from now!——she slipped into the tub, sinking into its polished innards. So smooth the stone here, every now and again it rose in an erotic curve.

Was it _deliberately_ curved here? A look to Kuja showed the Genome’s even teeth; something had him grinning. "You. This lovely room…I could never imagine such finery in Lindblum. I haven’t even seen it in Treno."

"I do like to spoil myself, I suppose. And with you as my guest I can give you such delights as well." He had his ways…such a beautiful man. She almost wished he’d give her back to that vulnerable height. But she set him onto the edge of the tub, nestled herself to a structure nearly like his hands…. Turned to watch him, the artful, pale form he made on black marble.

How she hungered for him. Even the glitter of his eyes was heaven itself. With a gently wandering finger, she touched the smallest of feathers his pinions made now, the little swipes of down one might think were for cosmetics. "My darling lad. To leave the unfulfilled, escape to the passionate…. Everything I could ever desire is contained in your frame. How did I never see it before?"

"The tempests of war will hide any safety from you…I only regret my role in them." How could he know there were many things she regretted, not the least of which had been returning to the man they both loathed?

She should have seduced him in Gulug, given herself to his passions after he’d frozen that deathly rush. Yet here, she could give him her attentions, admire him to her eyes as closely as he had her——and with his nature he would command them both, even in his minuscule size. How wet and soft she grew, how dearly she wanted him.

"You are paradise and bliss,” he murmured. "Gladly will I roam your fertile valleys." The grace in his speech, what she’d thought theatrical before the very need she’d dreamed of. It seemed to pain him even to look at her.

Oh; well it might. He sat agonizingly erect. Slowly she traced her fingertip down his hair, stroking…those lovely eyes drifted closed, he wobbled where he sat. "Pray give me your body." Her words drew his face to flush like a rose. "Trust me…as I gave myself to you, I knew you would not harm me and only sought my pleasures…."

"As you wish.” He clung for the fingers that swept around him, pressed himself needfully to the cushion of her palm. Would he spill himself onto her tongue, she wondered, the way she had upon his? Or was his place the secretive depths of her, where if he descended he might lose his life? The urge she gave him, the way he hungered…More than evident the way he worked himself to her.

She drew him close, watched the glitter in his eyes. "Darling, yes. Let me taste you."

"Ah——" He tried to veil that helpless sound, to no success…thrust himself to whatever lovely croft of warmth her hold provided, the whole of him trembling and hot. How a man who commanded frozen might could be a brazier in her hand….

Yes, those eyes. The way his tail lashed, wound around her fingers as well as it could…He braced himself there, watching her beneath his lashes. It took little skill to see him lick his lips, those breaths so small and shuddering. Impulsive and youthful, that need, the fervor of those thrusts would drive her halfway through his pallet when he’d healed….

Oh, no, he wouldn’t spill in her hand. She’d not permit it. The trembling, the gasps, she found his breaking point and covered his loins with her tongue.

"——Oh god, Hilda——" He keened, he mashed himself to her, words breaking off into near-inaudible groans. How sweet and silky he was, that honeyed trail nectar on her lips. The torture of waiting three more days.

Kuja faltered in her hand and slipped free——Into the bath, where even the smallest of eddies might drown him if not the depth! He struggled for the nearest handhold——for her waist, to cling there in a trembling mess…. Couldn’t he swim?

"Can’t——,” He panted, “help me——” The panic! She plucked him from the heat, cradled him to her neck as he shivered.

"Poor dear!" She might know for certain by how hard he held on…if he used his nails, she wouldn’t half blame him. He *had* almost drowned there, hadn’t he? A weakness they’d have exploited if they’d known…. "Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall again."

"I can’t swim,” he managed to gasp.

She might've guessed as much. Garland would certainly be the reason…Perhaps something to divert them these next few days. What if he were imperiled again? To lose his sweet self to something as feckless as water…. "Perhaps you'll allow me to help you learn, Kuja. You’re small enough for me to assist with it."

"From ecstasy unbound to nearly having drowned. I’m such a wreck."

"Noooo,” she soothed. "You are a delight." And if Cid made any attempt to ravage this place, she’d see her Genome paramour had as few weaknesses as he could. "Never you fear, angel heart. I shall not see you die from a thing so rude…. You have completed me in this short time of ours. I need naught else but you."

"As soon as I am able, you will be unmade with your ecstasies. And then I'll learn where that single threat of ours has gone, whether he’ll search for you or throw himself to base devices." Soaked to the skin and thrilling, he pressed his lips to the cliff of her neck.

She stroked his diminutive back where he sat…he’d balanced himself nicely on her collarbone. "Let me place you somewhere you won’t fall again…. It frightened me to see you flounder so." Though she much desired to tease him to orgasm as she had, to drink him further dry until he crawled with emptiness.

Against her his manner began to rise once more, like a fresh spring shoot. He craved her more than Cid had ever done, she’d swear she graced his dreams the way he nestled stiff and pleading to her…Carefully she cupped him in her hand, drew him close. "Now perhaps you will allow me to treat you in kind, dearest…. The way you washed me with that tongue of yours." That dip had left him bedraggled and nervous. “I'll warm you back up."

"My temptress…." Willingly he splayed his limbs, allowed her the gentlest of caresses with her fingertip. Where she stroked he hardened further, arching so sensually up…. She would submit to all of his desires when he had his height once more. He would bring her such pleasures as she’d never known…that much he promised, the subtle way he moved, his lovely gasps where he lay.

A hateful person would bite him in half, end his beauty in its prime. Given the opportunity, she suspected many on this world would. But Hilda lifted him close, protected him in the fortress of her fingers, leaned to gently touch her lips to the tiny sole of one foot. How soft he was, it was inconceivable that he could cause such war while remaining so silken. And the pent-up breath he released was the smallest of breezes on her face, to cool her while she thirsted for him. Sweetly he stroked what space of her skin he could reach. 

"Oh, Hilda. My siren, my goddess…." Those plying whispers, imagine how they would sound when he had been restored to his lordly self. His passionate thrusts inside her…. Were she able to quicken from desire, she’d be doubly impregnated now. She might never cease to bear if only her need would conceive.

Ah, but he would. Kuja held within him the thirst for life, of its excellence where he could craft it…Vivi was but one lad given from his virile drive. If the archmage opened her womb even once, the scads of children they’d have in a decade….

"You are thinking of something,” he breathed there.

She kissed that lovely, graceful foot again. "Your loins and what they would give to us. Imagine our joys, Kuja, we could make an endless family that stretched for generations…." And what a thrill to see him color ruddy, he gave himself to the fantasy as she did…So many children wandering the castle, playing with dragons, squealing with their laughter.

"My flawless jewel, I will give you anything you desire of me. My seed is but the least of such." How torturous it was! The waiting! She might give him to her now if not for the certainty he’d suffocate. But he lifted himself to reach for her, to stroke the curves of her lips. "And when this burden of mine has receded you will be bed-bound for days."

For  _ days. _ How her vulva streamed where she reclined in his bathtub.

Unable to walk? Her spine numbed from his fervid thrusts, limbs immobile with his sleeping weight? The depths of her fitted tightly around his cock, unwilling to release him for even half a moment? Were she only so fortunate. Her wedding night had been spent in fear, submitting to Cid and the pains he pressed upon her, the girl she’d been a poor fit for the man who’d married her. Seven years…such a difference they made in form, how agonizing his pleasures had been to her. Nothing of care for his wife.

And here she’d fled now, to a younger man than her, who had nothing to offer but freedom...the caprice and passions he kept within himself. She craved the light he dwelled in and yearned for its completion within her.

Kuja would never be so unkind to her frame. Even in the excess he held over Cid, he would use it to their satisfaction, give her to sensations she’d only dreamed of. Behold the sweetness of that skin, the cords of muscle and smooth flat shelf of his belly…imagine the way it would flex with breath as he lustfully exerted himself with her…. Every mote of her desired the inevitable claiming, when he would rise in his beauty above her and seam her lips with his. She quaked from just the thought.

He’d seen the way she yearned within…his hands roved her lips as passionately as his tongue had her frame. "How you hunger…. Don’t fear, my sweet. It will end soon enough. And then I shall take you in every way that delights."

His darling speeches, the way even they gave her to pleasure. She touched her tongue to his hands, tasted him as he teased. Even as small as he was, he enticed her! The bath had gone cool, it’d been more for her benefit…slowly she tugged the stopper out, rose from the water to touch her feet to the silky pelts on his floor. Did he have a library, a fireplace perhaps? Somewhere she could be lain down in the bare and indulgently loved before lattice-bound flames?

"Oh my precious lad.” She flowed thickly, slickly between her thighs; he’d given her to drip like ripened fruit. "Let me take you somewhere I can please you, a secluded place you can please me…. Show me every inch of these grounds and teach me their secrets.”

"Later,” he husked, “when I can shield you from all the dangers they hold. I would not lose you to the natural kind of traps." He straddled her thumb where she bore him from the bathroom, watched her with a need unknowable. How they had been so distant while she resided in his custody…. She wished for those days again, for the opportunity to press herself to the cell door and invite him to conquer her.

How lovely would that have been?


End file.
